Following the Leader (Memorial to the Children Killed in the Blitz)

Sculptural relief in coloured concrete: ‘Following the Leader (Memorial to the Children Killed in the Blitz)’, 1949 by Peter Laszlo Peri. Mounted on the stair tower of Darley House (not listed).

The relief is of red ochre coloured concrete laid over an expanded metal mesh and is 4.73m tall and 1.65m wide. It depicts a naturalistic group of six children, linked by their hands, cascading down the wall. The group spring from a narrow two-stage concrete plinth which stands proud of the wall. According to the catalogue of a Peri exhibition at the Leicestershire Museum and Art Gallery in 1991, the composition was originally framed by dark coloured pointing to the yellow stock brick, to make it stand out from the rest of the surface, but this has since been replaced with standard mortar.

This List entry has been amended to add the source for War Memorials Register. This source was not used in the compilation of this List entry but is added here as a guide for further reading, 16 June 2017.